I understand the reasoning behind the shorter seasons. Budgetary concerns are a real problem and even with Disney picking up the international distribution, the BBC is not in the best shape right now. From what I can tell few organizations that had any funding from the UK government are in great shape after over a decade of slashing from the Conservative government. Anyhow, the BBC can't afford to make a show that visually can compete with HBO or Netflix or Star Wars, certainly not for 13 episodes. So I get it, but the problem here is it was less of a chance to get to know our new Doctor or Ruby Sunday. I mean it is crazy we have two episode in a row with little Doctor action and yet in total we have only 8 episodes (9 if we count the Christmas special). It limited how much I felt I got to get into these new characters (or new versions of these characters), and as a result, I didn't really feel anything when we got to Ruby's emotional goodbye to the Doctor at the end of the season. I barely know you, so have fun in your life getting to know your birth parents I guess!
I think another issue is the lack of diversity behind the scenes. I don't mean necessarily that it is only white men writing it, because honestly I am all for diversity but I don't care who is writing Doctor Who as long as it is good stories, but I mean we literally had 4 writers for the whole season. The bulk of the episodes were penned by Davies himself, with one episode written by Moff and then the other two writers were teamed up on "Rogue." We aren't getting a wide range of styles here, and I think that is a detriment to the show, even if I like a good chunk of Davies output.
For example, lets go back to David Tennant's debut year. Including the Christmas special, Davies wrote 6 episodes. That left 8 episodes for different voices to come in and write different kinds of stories. Now this year including the Christmas special, Davies wrote 7 episodes, only one more than he did back in 2006 series...but that left only 2 slots open. Imagine if we had some other voices that could come in and maybe take up two slots, and Davies could maybe think "why don't I start the season off with something better than Space Babies?"
Like I said, ultimately I liked this series (I can't get too confused with numbering so despite them trying to pretend this is a new series 1 it is going to be 14 for me), but I just hope that Davies can bring in more writers next time. I mean fair play he isn't writing this year's Christmas special, but that duty has gone to Moffat, a showrunner who wasn't the best at Christmas specials in my opinion. I dunno if those other two writers will return but I hope if they do they can get better than "Rogue" I mean I guess it was okay but it just wasn't my favorite of this season. This show needs to find new writers who could potentially take over and take this series on when Davies decides to move on again, because ever since Moff took over way back in 2010 there really hasn't been an obvious next choice for showrunner. Chibnall obviously had a divisive time running of the show (which I maintain was overblown and it really wasn't that bad), and we may be back in familiar and mostly liked hands, but who will be the heir apparent to keep the show alive into the next decade?
NEXT TIME:A Very Moffat Christmas
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